Fess Parker, TV's Iconic Davy Crockett, Dead at 85

Fess Parker, the strapping star who played Davy Crockett in the hugely popular Disney television show of the 1950s, died today of natural causes at age 85, his family announced.

The actor, whose classic roles also included the son-consoling dad in Old Yeller and another 'coonskin-cap-favoring frontiersman in NBC's Daniel Boone, had retired from showbiz in the 1970s and founded a hugely successful winery and resort in Santa Barbara.